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His nerves tingled. His brain was in overdrive. And he felt like he needed to hug a toilet.
It wasn't the first time getting teleported by Moon-Moth, but Cavalier was just dealing with the impact of their sudden leap off of the asteroid. The asteroid that had turned the lake into a steam bath. A part of him wanted to grab his coffee on his way out the door, on the grounds that he would probably really need it. This desire was reinforced by the shape moving in the steam - and the transmission.
"Yeah, there's that famous Khanate diplomacy. 'Come back, and we'll only take out one kneecap.'" He started shifting the parameters on his suit. As power rerouted, the blaster slid back out into place in his hand. "So, are we going to give a new meaning to 'shotgun diplomacy,' or...?"

"We understand your concerns," said Cavalier, feeling himself sliding a bit too fast into slick and boilerplate. That wouldn't work; these guys were probably used to company suits the way they were used to silica in their undergarments. He relaxed his demeanor, relying on instincts from his troubleshooter days. "Truth is, you guys aren't the only ones who've been experiencing accidents and malfunctions lately. We're here to see whether this is deliberately targeted or whether there's some sort of phenomena --"
Just say "phenomena." It's better than saying "magnetic storm" or "big angry lava monster."
"-- that may be responsible for these setbacks. And if some bastard's responsible, we'll find that out, too, so for now... well, things are tense enough as is. Maybe let it bleed off a little."

Cavalier tried to slowly make his way towards the gates of Derendis. "Slowly" was partially a matter of not drawing attention, and partially a matter of trying to keep his footing so that he didn't get bowled over. Because it felt like everyone was running towards the gates now. Not just guards, but also soldiers and...
He ducked out of the way as the man on horseback nearly trampled him. Yeah, they are literally sending in the cavalry. In the alley, covered in muck, Cavalier decided the time for subtlety had well and truly died. He drew his armor onto him and rose into the sky, not caring that everyone was going to see a second bolt of light tearing through. As he rose, he saw the "second sun" break over the horizon, and knew that this was going to get a lot rougher.
On the ground, Hyperslice could feel the army - literal and otherwise - rushing towards their position. Fortunately, they had other things to care about. The "second sun" was breaking the horizon, a bright and glowing ember wrapped in an aura of sunlight and flame. And in its trail ran a long shadow - an army, moving over the distant hills, much slower than their beacon with no less terrible a fury.

Aw, fragg
Cavalier quickly hopped to follow in the path of Moon-Moth, using the boosters on his boots to try to clear the distance. It wasn't easy - with the static field on the asteroid still crackling, every moment was like biting down on tinfoil. At its best, at least. Of course, that was replaced by an even greater concern as the ship came skidding to a halt. Within a second, he was off in a flash, pushing himself across the microgravity of the asteroid. He expected Sitara and Seresk to be okay, but that had not looked like a pleasant landing. And with this field up, the systems in there might be going up like a goddamn fireworks show.

Great. A fight over rival teams in the midst of heavy machinery and volatile gases. This could only go well.
Cavalier reached for the gas mask he'd initially rebuffed. Keeping the helmet up would provide a barrier to interaction, no matter how transparent it was. It was part of the diplomatic protocols of the Star Knights - any barrier of interaction could be seen as a sign of reservation, isolation, and distance. Of course, there were some situations where head coverings could aid in negotiations, but for the most part, it was recommended to drop the helmet and just show your face. Fully, that is.
"Yeah, we're here to help make sure stuff like this gets resolved peacefully," he said.

This part of the planet was less earth and more ember. Cavalier had seen some burning craters in his time, and tread through more than a few of them, but it was something else to see the grand gaps that seemed carved out of the planet. Or furrowed out by the rising lava.
No matter what the species, we'll always go to the gates of Hell and kick 'em open to get something of value out of it.
He took everything in as they landed and entered the facility. He noticed the motion of the workers, passing about the facility with precise and studied motion, the kind that was reinforced by days of practice. As they approached the turbolift, Cavalier nodded politely to Lo-rid without drawing attention to his own helmet. He figured that making a show of it would be taken as patronizing. He focused more on what might await them at the bottom of the lift.

Hotter than the magma it is used to dealing with... could that mean magma from deeper down in the strata? Perhaps something dredging its way up from the depths? Something that might need a radically high body temperature to adapt to those depths...
Then again, speculation was nothing as long as they were relatively topside. "Yeah. This would be best if we could get eyes on the scene."

The woman's demeanor seemed to have shifted from the certainty of the damned to something cold and mechanical. It was something vaguely familiar to Hyperslice, especially among the hotbloods - that sense when the gears jam and the mind just processes options on the grounds somewhere between logic and reflex, as if every neuron was routed towards the singular instinct of "Well, this might as well happen." But there was likely some decision making left in her yet, as she pointed to the option with Skirris and the others. She held up one hand, with four fingers splayed out wide; then, she brought the fingers together, as if preparing to make a palm strike. But the hand didn't move. She just nodded to Skirris.
---
Cavalier, Paradigm, and Sitara could all see guards running up and down the streets, drawing swords, bows, and... were those halbreds? God, it's like Medieval Times on meth. Cavalier pulled into the nearest side alley he could find, opening his comms. "Skirris, it looks like everyone with anything larger than a meat cleaver is drawing out. Don't think they've nailed down your location, but --"
That was when Cavalier heard bells ringing in the distance. Then more. The towers of the city were ringing in a chain, creating a directional arrow.
"That explains all the spires, then..."
---
Skirris could hear the bells ringing in the distance. She looked back towards the city, realizing the din was pointing in her direction. But something made her look back to the horizon as well.
In the distance, there was a glimmer coming up from the edge. Much like a second sunrise.

So many ideas came to Cavalier's mind. He broke them down in his list between "fairly reasonable," "possible, but will yield laughter," and "possible, but may yield me getting burned at the stake." Asking about native subterranean fauna would be weird. Such creatures did exist in magma on certain planets across the galaxy, but odds were the mining company would have led with that if there were any rumors of lava-worms.
So many lava-worms out there. It's almost surprising.
So, there would have to be a different route. "I don't suppose there have been any kinds of spook stories among the minors? Things lurking in the dark? That tunnel that you swear it sounds like it's moaning?"

It most certainly was not a pleasant experience.
Cavalier gritted his teeth and tried to focus through the pain. Okay. He'd seen those thrusters before. Ways to get an object to slow just as it was entering a planet's atmosphere. Often used on deep space mining operations, usually to keep asteroids out of atmospheric decay in case they fell into a planet's gravity well --
Another spark. Another jolt. Focus.
Okay. So were they already here, or... No. The splintering of the rock. It seemed fresh. These thrusters hadn't been installed and worked into the rock; they had been deployed. Which meant they were installed specifically for this purpose, at this time. And the rock... didn't look like rock. Meaning...
"It's a craft! We're on a ship!"

15 on a K: Physical Sciences roll to figure out what the hell they might be planning with these drivers.
20 on a Will save to focus enough to figure out whether or not we need to give these things a push.

At this point, there were a lot more important things to worry about than Moon-Moth's phraseology. He took Moon-Moth's hand. "Let's go," he said. As he waited for the spell to take hold, he sent a command to his blaster. Maybe, hope against hope, these propulsion engines wouldn't be EMP-shielded. Maybe he could disable each one with a single shot, bringing the asteroid's motion down to inertia alone with relative haste.
And maybe there will be underwear models there. With beer. But hope springs eternal.

There's a particular certainty that comes with knowing that you may be damned. It makes you do incredible things. The woman saw the snake standing before her, that had brought light with her very movements, and thought that all her worst nightmares were true, that she truly had given herself over to the beasts in the outer darkness. But if she was damned already, what was another step? She took the strange serpent's hand...
---
"Skirris? Skirris, where did you -- ?" A bright explosion in the distance confirmed for Cavalier just where she had went. Cursing in several languages, he dialed in to the comms. "Cover's blown. Looks like we're doing an improvised exfiltration. Skirris, once you settle, give me your coordinates." The cries of city guards were rising in the distance, and seemed to be growing closer. "We may need to reconvene with you there once we lay down cover."